


Dancing on Ice.

by Ephemera_pop (Alex_Draven)



Category: Popslash
Genre: Dancing on ice, Gen, Ice Skating, M/M, Reality TV, chubby Joey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-15
Updated: 2006-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-16 21:57:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10580286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_Draven/pseuds/Ephemera_pop
Summary: "Yup. I'm going to do Dancing on Ice."That sentence still didn't make  any sense. Joey lent his elbows on Chris's breakfast bar, and took another sip of his coffee. It was infuriating how calm he was being."_You_ are going to ... you did hear the 'on Ice' part of the title, right, Joe?""Uh huh.""And you do remember that you can't skate?""I can.""Letting go of the guard rail once without falling over doesn't exactly count."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this request](http://community.livejournal.com/fic_requests/143377.html?mode=reply) on [](http://fic-requests.livejournal.com/profile)[**fic_requests**](http://fic-requests.livejournal.com/) , for [](http://pensnest.livejournal.com/profile)[**pensnest**](http://pensnest.livejournal.com/) , and with all due thanks to [](http://ephemera-pop.livejournal.com/24468.html#)[](http://ephemera-pop.livejournal.com/24468.html#)**no_pseud** for the beta-ing and encouragement. All remaining mistakes are my own damn fault.
> 
> Ohh - and I need a media disclaimer, don't I? It's been aaages since I needed one of those :) : I don't have any rights to the Dancing on Ice franchise and am gratuitously borrowing it for my own amusement. Promise not to break it or make money from it. Brownie Guide's honour. [The more usual _real people, not real events_ thing goes here too, but you all know that, right?]

"You're going to do Dancing on Ice?"

"Yup. I'm going to do Dancing on Ice."

That sentence still didn't make any sense. Joey lent his elbows on Chris's breakfast bar, and took another sip of his coffee. It was infuriating how calm he was being.

"_You_ are going to ... you did hear the 'on Ice' part of the title, right, Joe?"

"Uh huh."

"And you do remember that you can't skate?"

"I can."

"Letting go of the guard rail once without falling over doesn't exactly count."

Chris only wished that was proper sarcasm, but Joey really was that bad. Or he had been, back in Europe, which was the last time Chris was aware of Joey even putting skates on. Talk about ideas coming out of left field. Dancing on Ice. The hell?

"So you'll help, then."

"Hang on a - what?" 

"You said it yourself, Chris, I need to practice."

Joey said that like it was the most logical thing in the world. Like, at some point, Chris had said something like 'sure' or 'I could try and teach you?' or 'do you want someone to come and laugh at you falling over?'.

"You need to back away from the stupid idea, is what you need."

"Too late - I signed up already."

"Joe, Joe - really. What were you thinking? At least Lance doesn't risk life and limb every time he gets the urge to raise his profile."

"I don't think you can die of ice skating. Pretty sure they'd have had a longer disclaimer section on the contract if you could, in fact." He really didn't seem at all fazed by the idea.

"You can wish you'd died," Chris muttered darkly. "Did you at least sign up for, like, the 2009 series?"

"Filming starts in eight weeks."

"Wow, Joe, you are so screwed," Chris pronounced with a big fake smile.

"You're saying you're not up to the job?"

Joey smiled and Chris knew, _knew_, he was being manipulated, but with the inevitability of continental drift found himself saying "No!" and then Joey's smile widened, and he said "thanks Chris - you're a real friend." and Chris shook his head because, really, Joey was useless on skates and this was a bad idea in every way, except for the part where Joe was unexpectedly sitting in his kitchen, smiling at Chris, which really didn't suck at all.

*****

 

"You didn't have to close out the ice rink." Joey seemed surprised when Chris pulled into the otherwise deserted parking lot.

"Yeah, I really did. And they'd only be renting out to kids' birthday parties or something anyway - mid week, early afternoon - not a busy time for them."

"Oh."

Chris wasn't quite sure what that tone of voice meant, so kept his eyes on the mirror, reversing neatly into the corner bay at the edge of the lot. He was two spots away from the only other car in the lot.

"C'mon."

Chris hopped out, and went round to the trunk to collect their bags. Sorting through the junk in his mud room had turned out to be slightly quicker than ordering a new pair of skates and waiting for the delivery guy, so Chris's holdall contained one pair of skates and a change of clothes, on the assumption that Joey probably would pull Chris over more than once. Joey's bag was suspiciously heavier.

"What's in here, anyway?" he asked as he swung it at Joey.

"Skates."

Chris turned around so he was walking backwards, glaring at Joey with mock sternness.

"You've bought, what, three pairs of super high tech skates with bells and whistles, and every kind of pads, and some cracked-out gadgety thing that someone on some website said you had to have, haven't you?"

Joey had the good grace to look a little ashamed of himself. He was so predictable sometimes.

"Kell said she thought the knee pads were probably a good idea."

Chris rolled his eyes, and turned back so he didn't reverse into the rink's main doors. They were locked, but when he knocked and peered into the dimly lit foyer through the glass a guy in a Skateland t-shirt hurried into view and let them in.

*****

"Fuck!"

Chris was at the far end of the rink, but Joey's voice echoed in the oddly empty space. He twisted, feeling the torque in his left leg and the scrape of blade on ice, and let momentum carry him further away from the sight of Joey on his hands and knees already. Maybe the bright blue knee pads hadn't been a total waste of money.

Another half-turn, and Chris looped in a long diagonal back across to the scene of the crime. He hadn't been skating in ages. He'd forgotten how cool it was. Also, scraping to a dramatic halt close enough to make Joe panic for a second and snatch his hands up from the ice was just funny, although from Joey's glare, he didn't agree.

"You remember when I said this was a stupid idea?" Chris mused, and then held out both hands, bracing his feet into a T. "C'mon - up and at 'em, big guy."

Joey grabbed hold and lurched and clambered to his feet. He felt about as stable as a drunk baby fawn.

"Right." Joey took a deep breath once he was more or less self supporting. "At least we know I can't get worse."

Chris raised an eyebrow in what, he felt, was an eloquent fashion. Small mercies, indeed.

*****

"You know, it's actually possible you are getting worse."

They'd been out for well over an hour, and while there had been brief moments of elation when Joey managed independent forward movement for whole, oh, seconds at a time, mostly he'd either clung or fallen. Every muscle in Chris's back and shoulders was complaining about having to keep hauling him upright, and the long muscle on the inside of his thigh was starting to twitch from all the unfamiliar activity.

"Thanks." Even Joey's unfailing good humor was starting to flag a little, and he sounded sour.

Chris looped his arm around Joey's waist, and, with Joey's over Chris's shoulders, they covered the last few yards to the break in the barrier. Back on solid ground Joey managed to totter over to the nearest chairs all on his own.

"Any chance you can get out of that contract?" Chris asked, dropping down next to Joey, nudging him, shoulder to shoulder.

"Chris!" Joey protested, and then scrunched one hand in his hair. He'd been wearing it pretty short for a while now, and Chris kind of missed when you could really bury your hands in it.

"It's a pretty stupid idea, man." Chris was honor bound to point out that he had, in fact, been utterly right, but Joey looked so crestfallen he found himself offering consolation as well. "But if anyone can pull it off, it'll be you. You were making progress. Kind of. And, hey. Eight weeks, right?"

Joey slumped forward, and Chris patted his back, a little awkwardly.

"Right. Okay. Home and hot tub, once I talk to Andy about booking this place every day for two months. And don't say I never do anything for you."

Joey grunted - or possibly whimpered - and Chris finished up with a squeeze to the back of Joey's broad neck. He bent over to unlace his skates, and by the time he'd wrestled his feet free, Joey had started to work on his own - super duper complicated - fastenings. Chris took his time wandering back to the front desk to sort out the block booking.

Andy was still working his way through the desk diary when Joey padded up behind Chris, and draped himself over Chris's shoulders. Chris tipped his head back, and turned his head a little, enough to see when Joey gave him a half-smile. So, sometimes stupid ideas weren't all bad.

*****

"So why did you sign up for this thing, anyway?" Chris asked, when they were happy settled in the hot tub in his pool room. It was far too hot outside for a satisfactory hot tub experience, which was more or less why God invented air conditioning and one of the reasons Chris liked being rich. The warm purposeful bubbles just felt so _fantastic_, there was cold beer in the fridge within arm's reach, and Joe was sprawled out next to him, his knee brushing against Chris's thigh. Really, life was good.

"Darrel mentioned it, and the more I thought about it, the more it just seemed like a good opportunity, you know? Three months in London, raise my profile in the UK, maybe try and get some stage work over there out of it, which would be incredible …." He trailed off.

"Your agent's never seen you skate, dude." Chris nudged Joey's leg with his own.

"He promised me it wasn't a problem." Joey's tone was dry. "And Kell's really keen on the idea of three months in Europe."

"That long?"

"Ten weeks of shooting, assuming I don't get voted off the first week, plus a little bit on each end," Joey shrugged. "She always did say she was jealous of us for getting to go over there."

"Your wife's always been crazy." Chris was at a loss to explain the feeling in the pit of his stomach the idea of Joe being gone for so long was giving him, so he ignored it.

"That's what I said." Joey smiled, and then twisted round and stood up to extricate a second bottle of beer from the fridge. He offered one to Chris with a gesture, and Chris shook his head, before dropping it back and letting his eyes drift shut.  
  
The water sloshed, and Joey made a contented sound as he settled back in. "This was a good idea, man," he said after a while. "I might actually be able to walk tomorrow."

"Wuss," Chris replied, without opening his eyes, or any regard for the fact he'd been starting to stiffen up a little on the ride back himself. He was under no illusion that he was anything but a couch potato at the moment.

"There's further to go, from my ass to the ice, don't forget," Joey returned, mildly.

"Not for most of this afternoon there wasn't."

Joey shoved flat-handed at Chris's shoulder, and Chris kicked him in the thigh. Not that hard, but the beer bottle was abandoned, leaving both hands free for Joe to threaten to poke and prod at Chris with. Chris wasn't feeling like moving that much, so he held up his own hands and said sorry instead, so Joey would subside back down beside him and they could carry on just – hanging out.

"But you kept getting back up," Chris offered, by way of apology. "And at least the dance half won't be too hard for you to pick up."

"If I ever master standing on my own two feet."

"Have faith, in me if not in you. You'll get it."

"I hope so," Joey grumbled, stretching. "If I don't turn into a fish first. I think I'm done. You want to head back over to ours for dinner?"

"Sure, thanks." Chris didn’t move yet, letting Joey's movements disrupt the predictable flow of bubbles.

"I should warn you, though, Kell's on another healthy eating kick. Some organic, fresh veg thing. It's pretty tasty, but, you know – vegetables."

"Dude – I'd have died of scurvy if you had any justification for that," Chris pointed out. So he'd turned his nose up at a couple of things, a while ago. Some of the things JC dished up just weren't food for real people, was all.

"I'm just saying." Joey rolled his eyes and tossed over a large white towel, which landed on the tile, inches from the edge of the hot tub.

"Warning appreciated." Chris smiled, and rolled his shoulders. Yeah. Soaking in the hot tub had been a really good plan. "How're you feeling, anyway?"

"Better," Joey replied. "Might stiffen up a bit overnight, but I'll be back tomorrow for the next lesson, don't worry. I'm going to have to step it up at the gym, too, though; lose some of this before filming starts."

He poked absently at his bare belly, and Chris tried not to look too hard. Joey'd either been sunbathing naked, or getting fake-baked with Lance. Chris wasn't altogether sure which theory was more disturbing to think about.

"Eeh – you're not so bad, Fatone."

"You saw some of the costumes they had the guys in last season? The UK show was worse than ours, I think. Nah, the world doesn't need to see my fat ass in spandex, so I probably shouldn't be drinking beer in your hot tub."

"That's me," Chris smiled, and hauled himself out of the tub. "Bad influence and provider of empty calories."

"And life-saving remedial skating coach." Joey looked up with one of those dazzling smiles that Chris had absolutely no resistance to. "And don't think I don’t appreciate it."

*****


End file.
